2016 Tornado Worlds – Final Day 6

Tornado Worlds are decided One more Title for the Greek Defenders: Gold for the Red Bull team of Iordanis Paschalidis and Konstantinos Trigonis

The old ones are the new ones: World Champions of the Tornado class are Iordanis Paschalidis and Konstantinos Trigonis from Thessaloniki (Greece). They impressed with a series of six wins and one fourth place. They are again World Champions of the Tornado Class. For Paschalidis, two times Olympic games participant, this is his sixth title – in a row! During the last racing day, Gavin Colby and Billy Leonard climbed up to rank two – the Australians now are new Vice Champions. Third overall – and also Mixed World Champions – are the Australian Brett Burvill (47) and 14-year–old German Estela Jentsch from Schwangau (Bavaria). A total of 29 teams participated in the Worlds.

Two more races were sailed on Friday morning (17th June) with southerly wind up to 15 knots. In the first race Paschalidis/Trigonis finished with a huge lead, so they didn’t need to start the last race and took this at their discard. “We sailed good this week. It was a strong competition and difficult conditions. The wind was permanently changing, going up and down“, resumed Paschalidis. “Except the weather all was very nice, also the volunteers helping us going afloat and coming in.“ In other races on Lake Constance in previous years, Paschalidis wasn’t as lucky as this time. “I hope we have the chance to compete here in Lindau again!“

Last years Mixed World Champions, Roland and Nahid Gaebler, couldn’t start because of a horse back riding accident two weeks before. So, this time, a new crew won the title: The Australian-Bavarian team Burvill/Jentsch. They performed well in the strong wind conditions in the first race on Sunday, which was very surprising considering they had only some hours of training in light winds. “I explained all maneuvers and she followed”, Burvill said, the Tornado boat builder from Perth. Estela was sailing Optimists and 29ers in the last years. She gained confidence quickly having experience with the multihull and the helmsman too. “She has a good feeling in light winds”, Burvill stated.

Second in the mixed category goes to the allinBlusive team of Maria Tsaousidou and Michalis Papadopoulos. A damage on the jib sheet did not let them finish one of the races but their were surprisingly fast, especially in stronger wind conditions.

Third place for the mixed division went to Czech and Zdenek Pavlis and Michaela Pavlisova. The father and daughter crew who has been close to the top many years now. Michaela was the second younger crew of this event!

The German team were Bob and Marc Baier from Fuessen (Forggensee) managed to finish 4th in the Open category. This heavy crew favoured the stronger winds on Friday, finishing second twice. T hey surpassed the Hellenic Police Team: Nikolaos Mavros and Alexandros Tagarapoulos who ended up in fifth place overall after sailing on second position overall. Their 2 capsizes after 2 severe damages made them score 2 DNFs on this event. “We want to win! If we sail good, we can beat anyone“, Tagarapoulos said before the race – which he proved with the bullet in the last race.

Best team from Lake Constance were Markus Betz and Monica Schuster from SMC Ueberlingen ranked tenth overall. “It was always a fair race – as usual for the Tornado class”, Betz said. The Jury, presided by Sergey Kuzovov (Russia), had only to rule over a small number of protests.

World Champions in the category Youth are Jaqueline Feuerstein (18) and Denise Grabher (25) from YC Rheindelta, Austria.

“It was an brilliant organisation in the Lindauer Segler-Club”, stated Juergen Jentsch, president of the International Tornado Class Association. “The Lindauer Segler-Club confirmed his reputation of almost being professional the way they managed the regatta.” Everything was under control except the weather. “Even under pressure by time and circumstances the race officers – Frenchman Paul Bastard und Markus Gielen from LSC – always took the right decision”, Jentsch confirmed, who came 15th together with his wife Sarah. Actually everybody expected light wind conditions – the more surprising to see leading three teams coming from strong wind areas.

“The class rules are quite restrictive – and so was the weather during the whole week. But today, however, we had perfect conditions: steady southern winds on the whole course providing fair sailing conditions for all”, head of organizations Nick Jung said. “It took quite some efforts for all to manage the event ensuring that everybody would be happy at the end.” But at the end, everything went well and a solution for all problems was found.